


A Brother's Love

by beargirl1393



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied Slash, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beargirl1393/pseuds/beargirl1393
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Dori took care of Nori & Ori, and one time where they took care of him.</p><p>Written for a prompt on the kink meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Brother's Love

**5.**

Dori wiped the sweat from Nori’s face with a cool cloth before settling it on his brow.

His brother had returned from who knew where, doing who knew what (and Dori really didn’t want to know), and promptly proceeded to pass out on the floor three steps from the door.

Thanking Mahal that Ori was at his lessons, Dori had picked up his brother, sighing at the heat emanating from the younger dwarf. Obviously, Nori had gotten injured and hadn’t properly tended to himself, resulting in infection and a fever.

He put Nori in his room before heading to the kitchen to put a kettle of water on to boil while also filling a basin with cool water. He would need the hot water to assist with cleansing his brother’s wound, while the cloth would hopefully cool Nori’s fever until Dori had time to make some willow bark tea.

Dori worked quickly but efficiently, cleansing the wound and packing it with poultices, thanking Oin for his medical lessons. He had to leave Nori when Ori came home, although he did return to check on him periodically. After dinner had been cooked and the dishes washed, Dori tucked Ori in before returning to his room to sit at his sick brother’s bedside.

He remained there throughout the night, rewetting the cloth and fetching cooler water as needed, as well as coaxing willow bark tea and broth down his brother’s throat.

By the time a week had passed, Nori’s fever had broken and he was back to his old self, playing with Ori for a day before disappearing again.

He never thanked his brother for caring for him.

**4.**

Ori had always gone to Dori whenever he was hurt. His mother had died delivering him, his father had died before he was born when Erebor fell, and his other brother was never around.

Dori fussed and mothered, but Ori had come to accept it (even if he didn’t like it sometimes).

So, when he scraped his knee after a bigger boy knocked him down in the play area, it was no surprise to him that Dori swooped in, cuddling him close and murmuring reassurances. He bandaged the injured limb when they got home, kissing it better as well, before putting Ori down for his nap. Ori fell asleep as his brother carded his fingers through his hair, singing lowly.

He was asleep before he could murmur his ‘thank you’.

**3.**

Heartbreak wasn’t an ill that Dori likely ever expected to counsel Nori on, yet he did his best, as always.

When he noticed his brother making eyes at the hobbit, he urged him to confront the smaller male. When Nori was too subtle (something Dori definitely never thought he would accuse his brother of), Dori counseled him, stating that ignorance did not mean rejection.

He spoke to the hobbit, learning their courting habits and he relayed that information to his brother, watching as the hobbit accepted the courtship and attempted to court him in dwarven fashion.

Nori was swept away by his hobbit and forgot to thank the one who helped him.

**2.**

Ori caught cold from the rain as they journeyed on, sneezing and coughing his way through their dinner in Rivendell. Abandoning his attempts to get his brother to eat anything, green or otherwise, Dori took his protesting brother to his bedroll, covering Ori with both of their blankets and fetching an herbal tea from Oin that would help. He convinced his recalcitrant brother to drink the tea and left him in the care of the hobbit momentarily before finding his way to the Lord of Imladris and requesting broth for his ill brother, knowing Ori would eat nothing else. He feed Ori the broth and let him sleep, knowing that he would be fine by the time they left.

Ori, distracted by Rivendell’s immense library, didn’t thank his brother for caring for him and sitting beside him all night, soothing him to sleep with lullabies as he had when Ori was a dwarfling.

**1.**

After the barrel ride, Dori locked both of his brothers in their room while he checked them over. Ori was sniffling, likely on the edge of a cold, and Nori kept an arm wrapped around his chest, protecting his bruised ribs.

Sighing lightly (an ignoring his own fatigue) Dori tracked down the town’s healer and bargained for the supplies he knew he’d need. Being the brother of a theif, Dori was nothing if not resourceful, and he had a small amount of money tucked away that the goblins hadn’t found.

Upon his return to the house they were staying at, Dori heated water for Ori’s tea, taking it to him and making him drink it while Dori rubbed salve on Nori’s bruises and bandaged his ribs. He forced both of them into bed, ignoring their protests, and kept watch all night, soothing them whenever they woke to nightmares of Mirkwood. (His own nightmares made staying awake easier than it would have been.)

Neither of the brothers mentioned it the next morning.

**+1.**

Nori and Ori hovered over the cot where their brother lay, watching him writhe in the grip of pain and the fever.

The battle was over, Erebor was won, but the two younger Ri siblings couldn’t bring themselves to care.

Dori had kept them close, of course, fighting like a thing possessed to keep them safe. He fell to an orc blade just before the battle ended, a blade intended for his brothers. The healers hadn’t gotten to him quickly enough, allowing the fever to set in. He had been in the healing tent for three days, and had fallen out of touch with reality the day before.

Nori and Ori flinched as their elder brother screamed and begged unseen forces, promising whatever they wanted for his brothers’ safety. He begged, pleaded, cajoled, and threatened by turns.

Nothing the elves or Oin were doing was helping him, and Nori and Ori feared for him.

“He patched me up a number of times,” Nori said, staring at the pale dwarf lying on the cot, eyes unfocused and unseeing. He couldn’t believe that it was Dori. “Once I passed out before I even made it to a chair. He picked me up, took me to his room, and patched me up, all without you knowing I was even sick.”

“He sang to me when I was sick,” Ori said, blinking back tears as he looked at Dori, strong, unstoppable Dori, laying nearly lifeless on the cot. “He sang lullabies, like he used when I was a baby to make me sleep, and he would run his fingers through my hair.”

Nori and Ori looked at each other and nodded. Their brother had healed them when they were sick, now they would return the favor.

The two worked tirelessly, taking over for the healers who were ready to give up on the older dwarf. Nori hunted until he found willow bark tea and a proper kettle to make it in. Ori re-bandaged his wounds, cleansing out the pus and putting fresh poultices in. Both sat beside him and sang, running gentle fingers through his hair as they sang softly to him. After two days Dori seemed to rally, and his fever broke on the eve of his fifth day in the healing tent.

When he came to, it was to his two ecstatic brothers practically smothering him, Ori sobbing that he thought Dori was going to die, Nori blinking back the tears he hadn’t felt since he was a dwarfling and telling Dori everything they had done to take care of him.

“Thank you,” Dori said after both had settled down. “I’ve always said that family is better at healing than any other.”

Neither of his brothers objected, knowing that their brother loved them and that while that love led to him fussing over them, that love also had him return to them when they thought he was lost forever.


End file.
